Date: 09/08/2008 - 09/08/2008

Time: 7:30 PM

Location: Lyte Auditorium, Alumni Hall

Author Ishmael Beah presents:

A LONG WAY GONE: A STORY OF REDEMPTION AND HOPE

Ishmael Beah's book "A Long Way Gone" is being read by Millersville University's incoming freshman class. It was nominated for a Quill Award in the Best Debut Author category for 2007. Time magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2007, ranking it at #3, and praising it as "painfully sharp", and its ability to take "takes readers behind the dead eyes of the child-soldier in a way no other writer has."

In 1991, civil war overtook Sierra Leone and Beah's parents and two brothers were killed. He claims that at the age of 13, he was pressed into service as a child soldier. According to Beah's account, he fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. He fought in the war, and after the war he continued to fight. Later in 1998, he fled from Freetown due to the increasing violence there and traveled to New York City.

Free and open to the public. 

Sponsors: Millersville University Commission on Cultural Diversity, Lancaster League of Women’s Voter, Black Culture Celebration, Cultural Affairs, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Common Reading Program, University Theme.

Contact Info:

Dr. Rita Smith Wade-El
Email - Rita.SmithWade-El@millersville.edu
Tel - 717-872-3090

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